Saturday, 20 January 2007

Let me clarify a few things here.. When I say "copycat", it doesn't mean that the recipes in this blog that are not labelled "copycats" are my concoctions.. ;-) It's just that given my proclivity to experimentation or simply my mood-driven cooking, most dishes I turn out eventually do not resemble the recipes I'd intended to follow. This is often due to the substitution or blatant omission of certain ingredients, and this in turn has a variety of reasons - can't find them here, don't have them on me and must at all costs make the dish NOW, or I just don't like them and think the dish would fare better without them. Isn't that what enjoying food is about anyway? :)

So, having bought a whole cabbage for my Sayur Lodeh the other day, and having used only a third of it, I was stuck with the other 2/3 without a prior Plan B and C. I had already thought of making Okonomiyaki, a Japanese stuffed pancake, but that would also require just a third of the cabbage. I was in the mood for something spicy and colourful, so took a peek at Naughty Curry. The fact that they had a cabbage listing totally won me over, so here is my adaptation of their Sunset Cabbage Strips!

Confession time - I didn't have urad dal and curry leaves on me, so I did without them. Instead I sprinkled chopped coriander leaves when the dish was done. I liked the dish all the same!

Variations: This is already a variation. :) Wouldn't dare to tamper further with it.

Hi RM, I do believe there are Malaysian restaurants in Paris, they're just usually Malaysian-Thai or Malaysian-Vietnamese. In fact, I've even eaten at one called "Le Sarawan" (111 av Ivry 75013 PARIS) ages ago, which wasn't too bad.

Hi tigerfish (sorry I haven't replied your e-mail yet!!)! No, it's just ordinary cabbage, cooked with peas and spices. I just wanted to use the word "Kraut" (German for "cabbage") instead of cabbage, so pardon me for the confusion. Sauerkraut ("sour cabbage") would be too mushy to look like this! :)

Hi again MW! Yeah, I need variety, too, but if I can't make something in small amounts, I freeze part of it! :) Advantage of that is that I don't need to cook sometimes, just thaw something from the freezer!